


there's a grief that lies unspoken

by Bookdancer



Series: the darkness on the edge of town [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Don’t copy to another site, Gen, Minor Tsukishima Kei/Yamaguchi Tadashi, Vomiting, but only in that it's not the focus of the fic, they are very much boyfriends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:49:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24478237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bookdancer/pseuds/Bookdancer
Summary: Kuroo finds out about the death of Karasuno’s #12 in the morning newspaper. But he doesn’t know him, not really—and that’s not him lying to himself, it’s the cold, hard truth.This doesn’t stop him from knowing the people who knew Yamaguchi.
Relationships: Kuroo Tetsurou & Yamaguchi Tadashi
Series: the darkness on the edge of town [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1533875
Comments: 4
Kudos: 69





	there's a grief that lies unspoken

**Author's Note:**

> this is 840 words of “i didn’t expect to write this but here we are.” idk i just started thinking about how the other teams would react and then this happened. kuroo really… isn’t actually grieving here, though. like he is, but also not? because he doesn’t know how to, which i’ll let the fic itself explain, but hopefully that comes across well.
> 
> and to be completely honest i only spent a couple seconds trying to think of a title before i decided the best one is the one i ended up with, which is kind of like the line “there’s a grief that can’t be spoken,” from les mis’s “empty chairs at empty tables,” except also not.
> 
> this is a small extension of “there’s a boy here in town (says he’ll love me forever),” which is entirely from karasuno’s first years close third pov and goes much more in detail about yamaguchi’s death (and spiritual beyond). this fic takes place between chapters two and three (kageyama and yachi’s chapters). you can absolutely read this on its own if you want, but also if you're at all interested in seeing how karasuno reacts/grieves, and also yūrei yamaguchi, and you haven't read "there's a boy here in town" yet, i highly recommend reading that, too (let's pretend my opinion isn't biased lol).
> 
> anyway i do not own haikyuu!! and this has been cross-posted to both ff.net (Bookdancer) and tumblr (@bookdancerfics). thanks as always to my beta, @queenofmoons67 (tumblr)
> 
> this is angsty but i hope you all enjoy!

Kuroo finds out from the morning newspaper, his mom pointing to an article on the fifth page with a large picture of Karasuno’s team and a smaller one of their #12, although he admittedly can’t remember his name. He mostly knows him as the kid who follows Tsukishima around. Sawamura had referred to him as Tsukishima’s boyfriend once.

“Tetsurou,” his mom says, her finger poised over the article’s title. “Do you know them?”

Kuroo’s chopsticks hover halfway between his bowl of rice and his open mouth. A single grain falls to the table.

“Tetsurou,” his mom says again. Her eyebrows furrow, and there’s a twist to her lips that wasn’t there a minute ago, a question in her eyes.

“Yes,” Kuroo says, but he feels almost frozen, like he should be doing anything but eating breakfast. He slowly lays his chopsticks horizontally across his rice bowl.

KARASUNO VOLLEYBALL TEAM WON’T MAKE NATIONALS, the article’s title reads. The subtitle explains that they were in an accident before they even reached Tokyo. “First year passed away hours later,” the subtitle continues, and Kuroo feels something acidic rise in the back of his throat.

The only thing that keeps him from calling Bokuto or Kenma is the tiny picture halfway through the article. The teen has dark hair, freckles, and a shy smile, and Kuroo thinks guiltily of how glad he is that it’s not blonde hair, or ginger, or how this boy doesn’t have glasses or a thousand watt grin. His name isn’t Tsukishima Kei or Hinata Shouyou, and the contradiction

of Kuroo’s overwhelming relief of that fact and the sick grief at losing someone he knows is important to those who are important to him crashes into him all at once.

Kuroo shoves himself back from the table, scrambling to his feet even as his mom’s voice fades. He dashes from the room, his slippers lost halfway down the hall, and finally greets the toilet.

He doesn’t have anything to throw up. He’d barely started eating, wasn’t even halfway through his first bowl of rice, and instead he can only choke out a thin string of bile.

“Oh, Tetsu-kun,” his mom says, and a warm hand rubs over his back.

She palms his forehead through his fringe, probably out of habit more than anything else, because he knows she knows he’s not sick.

“Were you close?” she asks, and when Kuroo pulls back from the toilet she gently wipes at his mouth with a tissue.

“No,” Kuroo says, then pauses. “Kind of. I don’t know.”

And the thing is, he doesn’t. He would consider himself to be casual acquaintances with Karasuno’s boys volleyball team, but friends with Tsukishima and Sawamura, a friend of a friend of Hinata. Karasuno’s #12, though, is essentially a stranger. He doesn’t know him.

He doesn’t know him.

He doesn’t know him, and Kuroo is both grateful for this and stricken with the thought of how now he never will, of how he will never again play against this younger teen. If he thinks back, hard, he thinks the kid was mostly focused on his serves. Or maybe it was his receives. Or his blocking. Kuroo never really paid much attention to him, and he leans back over the toilet again, sick with guilt.

Nothing comes up.

“I’ll tell the school you won’t be coming in today,” his mom says, and Kuroo lurches to his feet.

“No,” he says. He grabs at her hand, clutches at her wrist. “No; I’ll go.”

“Tetsurou, you don’t have to.”

He shakes his head. “No, I should. I—I didn’t even really know him, anyway. And the team—Kenma. Kenma should know. And nationals.”

He’s babbling now, excuses spilling from his lips, and he stumbles from the bathroom to grabs his backpack, then his sports bag, and then pull on his shoes. By the time he’s out the door he’s walking with his shoulders back and face straight, like nothing can bother him.

Kuroo stops a block away from Nekoma to pull out his gatorade and take a couple swigs. He swishes the drink around in his mouth, then spits into some bushes, then repeats until he can’t taste bile anymore. He never brushed his hair this morning, or styled it, and he’s forced to use his phone’s camera as a mirror instead, to swipe his fingers through his fringe and thank the fact that it takes a lot to make him cry.

Then he feels guilty, again, because surely the death of someone he knows—the death of a friend of a friend, or a friend of an acquaintance, or a boyfriend of a friend—surely the death of a person should be enough to make him cry.

Except he didn’t know Karasuno’s #12, not really, so the best he can do is square his shoulders again, march into school, and go find his team to tell them the news. Maybe after that he’ll finally find the courage to text Sawamura and ask him how his team is doing.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! please feel free to drop a comment and feed the author, you all know the drill right?
> 
> also an update on the actual series "the darkness on the edge of town" and the main fic that has yet to be posted: i know it's been awhile but i haven't abandoned the project, it's just taking me a bit. i have a lot of fics that i want to write, not all for this fandom, and juggling them takes even more work--but fear not, it will be posted eventually. i hope you all enjoyed this little fic in its stead
> 
> finally: i have a tumblr account! @bookdancerfics, please feel free to drop by and bug me about writing


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